4:00pm

Explore the innovation and artistry of creators across the globe in the Nominee Exhibit. Selected by the jury committee as the most innovative and exciting work from this year's submissions, all are eligible for the IndieCade Awards. A diverse selection of games and playable experiences from across mediums, cultures, and concepts. This exhibit includes immersive, virtual reality, table games, roleplaying, visual novels, adventure games, puzzle games, audio games, installations and more.

Games Included:_transferA Normal Lost PhoneAtchafalaya ArcadeBIT RATBleep SpaceBury me, my LoveBusy WorkCat Sorter VRCosmic Top Secret Cribbage with GrandpasDetentionEmotional Fugitive DetectorEverything is Going to Be OKFear SphereFeastFour HorsemenFrog Fractions 2GNOGHackers of ResistanceIshmael Keyboard SportsKimLadykiller in a BindObjectifObligeOikospiel Book IOneShotRhythm DoctorSantiagoSign: A Game about being UnderstoodThe Norwood SuiteTracking IdaUn-DestinedVignettes Virtual Virtual Reality Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

10:00am

There is a good reason to use concept art to help inspire your team or even yourself to plan ahead for the visual impact your games will have on your audiences. Just adding some visual design could motivate people to engage in your content even before you have that content completely made!

Anthony has worked in the game industry as a concept artist since 2007. His work experience includes studios like Blizzard, Sony Santa Monica, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Insomniac Games, Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, and more. Anthony decided to share his experience and... Read More →

John Hight – Production Director, Blizzard Entertainment.
In 1991, John built his first game, Battleship, for the Philips CDi player. Since that time he has worked on over 40 games. He currently oversees the development of Word of Warcraft for Blizzard. He previously served... Read More →

Jenova Chen is the designer of the award-winning games Cloud, flOw, Flower and Journey at thatgamecompany, an independent game studio recognized for creating timeless interactive entertainment that inspires and connects people worldwide.
After earning a bachelor's degree for computer... Read More →

As thatgamecompany’s Audio Director, Vincent Diamante oversees the music direction, composition and sound design of the studio’s next project. Fans of Flower and Cloud will instantly recognize his award-winning work from his early collaborations as the music composer for both... Read More →

John Hight – Production Director, Blizzard Entertainment.
In 1991, John built his first game, Battleship, for the Philips CDi player. Since that time he has worked on over 40 games. He currently oversees the development of Word of Warcraft for Blizzard. He previously served... Read More →

10:00am

Explore the innovation and artistry of creators across the globe in the Nominee Exhibit. Selected by the jury committee as the most innovative and exciting work from this year's submissions, all are eligible for the IndieCade Awards. A diverse selection of games and playable experiences from across mediums, cultures, and concepts. This exhibit includes immersive, virtual reality, table games, roleplaying, visual novels, adventure games, puzzle games, audio games, installations and more.

Games Included:_transferA Normal Lost PhoneAtchafalaya ArcadeBIT RATBleep SpaceBury me, my LoveBusy WorkCat Sorter VRCosmic Top Secret Cribbage with GrandpasDetentionEmotional Fugitive DetectorEverything is Going to Be OKFear SphereFeastFour HorsemenFrog Fractions 2GNOGHackers of ResistanceIshmael Keyboard SportsKimLadykiller in a BindObjectifObligeOikospiel Book IOneShotRhythm DoctorSantiagoSign: A Game about being UnderstoodThe Norwood SuiteTracking IdaUn-DestinedVignettes Virtual Virtual Reality Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

10:30am

Whether you've already got a game you're working on (woooo!), one you've recently finished (congrats!), or simply want to be better prepared for when you reach that point (you will!), you're going to have to talk about it. Although this sounds like such an easy thing to do, after all you know your game inside and out, it's an extremely normal thing to struggle with. Many developers feel weird about marketing and find it uncomfortable to "bother" other people about their game, especially strangers. In this session we'll show how that's backwards, how done right talking about your game is part of a bigger picture about finding the audience fit for who will most appreciate that you helped them find out about it. To do this we'll partly be incorporating breakouts to strategize about ways to make your game's case more efficiently and effectively.

Chris has been making games for 20 years. He's worked with startups and AAA games, taught game creation at Georgia Tech, and spoken at more than 10 conferences (including GDC, IndieCade, and SIEGE). Over 90,000 students have gone through his online courses, and he's done countless... Read More →

Tabby Rose is a game designer, illustrator and writer based in Toronto, Canada. Graduating with a Masters of Science in Biomedical Communications from the University of Toronto, Tabby started her career creating educational applications for medical students and clinicians. In 2014... Read More →

11:00am

This talk is about injecting the love and pleasure back into every part of our job. When is the last time you tap-danced to work, mumbling “I’m Walking On Sunshine” and smiling at nature? Whenever your job feels like work, it’s an opportunity for realignment and bringing back the looooove into what you do. “I want the fun!” you bellow, “I want to love every part of my job!” Yes! I love your verve.

I’ve spent the last few years experimenting with a wide variety of actionable strategies and practices in sights of making my professional (and personal) life as rich and fulfilling as possible. In this talk, I’ll talk about these practices, what worked, what didn’t, what I still do today, and why. For example, weekly reflections and kickoffs, and my mandatory 30-second dance breaks 3 times every day. There are two primary takeaways: 1) Give attendees a toolbox of enjoyable, low-commitment strategies to try out at home to increase their happiness and productivity, and 2) Empower attendees to define their happiness goals with intention and take more control of their lives. We’ll also have a discussion about our own personal struggles and strategies and learn from each other’s wisdom and mistakes.

Addressing mental health has a bit of a social stigma, which is unfortunate because of the invaluable benefits discussions about mental health provide us. The more we discuss mental health, the more in control of our minds and lives we become.

We all deserve to love what we do every day, and it’s *always* a good time to fall back in love with what we do.

Brett Taylor is the founder and solo dev of My Dog Zorro. Brett and Zorro most recently released Linelight (linelightgame.com) and are finishing up its port to iOS and Android (as of July 2017)! Brett’s been designing and programming games since 2007; he previously worked as a rapid... Read More →

11:00am

Houdini is well known for it's awesome VFX tools, but a lot of people don't know that Houdini also contains tools for modelling. In this presentation you will learn the basics of procedural modeling using Houdini and Houdini Engine to create game assets for Unity. The main goal is to increase your art quality while also reducing your production time.

Luis Garcia (also known as “Lune”) is a 3D artist and indie game developer at his own studio, Feline Arts, in Mexico. Lune is currently working on his 3D platformer game, Suki & the Shadow Klaw, for Playstation 4, Xbox One, Playstation Vita and PC. | | Full bio available on the... Read More →

11:00am

Even when they seem to be "just for fun," games can never be separated from culture; they shape and are shaped by the society around us. For this reason, games are also political. Today, in our current moment of political turbulence, it has never been more important for game makers and game players alike to confront the hard questions about the relationship between games, play, power, activism, and oppression.

In this session, a diverse group of game designers and academics will explore some of these questions. How should games engage with politics? For those who are committed to social justice, what are the challenges to making games in the current political regime? Can games be a force for social change? How do we overcome resistance to political engagement within games culture and encourage others to explore the medium's full political potential? The speaker panel will be followed by an open community Q&A and discussion. Those interested in continuing the conversation are also encouraged to attend the afternoon breakout session, Games and Politics: Taking Action.

Lishan AZ is a game designer and writer who creates experiences that blend digital and non-digital play while inviting players to collaborate in shared spaces. Her work explores Black women's resistance, identity and historical perspectives. Lishan's M.F.A. thesis, Tracking Ida... Read More →

Jane Pinckard is Associate Professor of the Practice of Cinematic Arts in the Interactive Media and Games division of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. She is a writer, critic, and educator who has studied the culture of video games for fifteen... Read More →

Bonnie Ruberg, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of digital media and games in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. From 2015 - 2017, they served as a Provost's Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Southern California in the Interactive Media and... Read More →

Aaron Trammell is an assistant professor in the Department of Informatics at UC Irvine. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers in 2015 and spent a year at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC as a postdoctoral researcher. Aaron’s... Read More →

Jeff Watson, Ph.D. (@remotedevice) is an Assistant Professor of Interactive Media and Games at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, and a director of the Situation Lab (@sitlab).

Emilia Yang is an activist, artist, and militant researcher. Her work has been interconnected with digital communications, performance, and public art. Her research focuses on participatory culture and its relationship to media, arts, and design. Yang is currently pursuing a PhD in... Read More →

12:00pm

Everyone loves board games - some just don't know it until you bring them in. The committee from the CUDO Plays Board Game Design Competition are here to share their experience running a 6-month long community-driven design competition! For 4 years, they've worked on inspiring a board game and board game design centered community. Learn about how to plan and run board game events, market towards a growing community, partner with local businesses, and encourage inclusiveness in your community!

Kaity Bequette is an IT professional at the University of Illinois. After designing her first game, she joined the CUDO Plays committee to improve the outreach of the program. As co-chair since Season Four, she has been instrumental in starting CUDO Plays Academy, a program for education... Read More →

Jess Chu is a game designer and writer, and co-designs games with Katie! Sometimes she daydreams of becoming a Big Time Video Game Star. Currently she is very into winning the heck out of crane games. Her online presence remains an enigma. | | Full bio available on the Official ... Read More →

Katie Khau is a game designer and artist specializing in cute art and cuter games! Among her game designs are Heifer Heist, an IndieCade 2014 Finalist, and Windup War. She has also done art for DemocraSea, an IndieCade 2016 Tabletop Select! Check her portfolio out at katiekhau.com... Read More →

Tim Kuehlhorn is a lifelong gamer and software developer. He has shared his enthusiasm for technical creativity by coaching a middle school LEGO robotics team, co-founding a university tabletop gaming club, and organizing networking events to encourage stronger faculty-student interaction... Read More →

12:00pm

Ever wondered how improv might benefit you and your team in your game dev pipeline? I will show how any team can take on improv exercises that support how teams manage, innovate, design and collaborate. A mix of spoken words and activities, in this playshop you’ll identify when and where your improv abilities pop up, link them to team competencies and learn how to improve team performance through targeted exercises.

A former clown on over 1500 shows, piano improviser and composer, Dr. P has taught improvisation to digital media geeks at the Master of Digital Media Program where he also supervises and mentors client-based digital media projects. Microsoft Game Studios, EA, and countless indies have also benefited from targeted exercises to improve agility, scrum, pitching, retrospectives, bad ideas, user-centered design practices, and prototyping... Read More →

12:00pm

The New Games Movement of the 1960s and 70s sought to redefine adult play experiences by developing cooperative, social and physical games that could serve as an alternative to traditional sports; these alternative games have gone have become pervasive in the classroom, at summer camps, at corporate events, and in theater training. Join IndieCade cofounder and author of Communities of Play, Celia Pearce, for this two-phased workshop. First, Dr. Pearce leads a sampling of some canonical New Games, as taught to her by New Games pioneer Bernie DeKoven. She then asks participants to invent their won New Games with a twist: Create new games that are derived from video games. A super fun activity for both kids and adults and a quick way to get a taste of game design. This work shop is part of the “Big Fun” program in association with the Bernie DeKoven “Big Fun” Award being inaugurated at this year’s IndieCade.

1:00pm

Some of the most successful indie titles have been made by impossibly small teams. Learn from this panel of talented indie game developers how they were able to break through to deliver high production value projects with limited resources. The panel will uncover best practices in production and marketing to deliver indie titles that generate buzz and make an impact.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­David Stelzer has been working in business development and licensing for Epic Games to help developers and businesses throughout the Americas and Australia make amazing projects with Epic’s Unreal Engine since 2015.
Before coming to Epic, David... Read More →

Timothy Rapp joined Activision in 2006 as an online gameplay engineer working for the Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, and Call of Duty franchises. Ten years later, he joined forces with former colleague Jay Mattis to form High Horse Entertainment, an independent studio focused on PvP-centric... Read More →

Co-Founder and visionary Creative Director of Kite and Lightning, Cory Strassburger is a two- time Emmy award-winning visual artist whose recent work earned him a Gold Lion at Cannes for the innovative Viv Magazine motion title and interactive spread. Since establishing Kite and Lightning... Read More →

Koriel is a sci-fi and fantasy-loving, martial arts-training, anime nerd who spends her free time indulging in the delights of movies, TV shows and games with her friends and family, as well as working on whatever her next cosplay is for an upcoming convention. She collects swords... Read More →

1:00pm

In this informal, workshop-style session, IndieCade community members are invited to join the speakers from the "Games and Politics: Where Do We Stand?" town hall in thinking through concrete ways that we can take political action through games and play. What opportunities are there for activism through the development and study of games? How can we come together as games professionals and players to support social justice?

Lishan AZ is a game designer and writer who creates experiences that blend digital and non-digital play while inviting players to collaborate in shared spaces. Her work explores Black women's resistance, identity and historical perspectives. Lishan's M.F.A. thesis, Tracking Ida... Read More →

Jane Pinckard is Associate Professor of the Practice of Cinematic Arts in the Interactive Media and Games division of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. She is a writer, critic, and educator who has studied the culture of video games for fifteen... Read More →

Aaron Trammell is an assistant professor in the Department of Informatics at UC Irvine. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers in 2015 and spent a year at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC as a postdoctoral researcher. Aaron’s... Read More →

Emilia Yang is an activist, artist, and militant researcher. Her work has been interconnected with digital communications, performance, and public art. Her research focuses on participatory culture and its relationship to media, arts, and design. Yang is currently pursuing a PhD in... Read More →

Bonnie Ruberg, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of digital media and games in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. From 2015 - 2017, they served as a Provost's Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Southern California in the Interactive Media and... Read More →

1:00pm

Confused about which business type is right for you? Wondering what you can do to protect your IP? Looking at a publising contract and thinking about whether your royalty structure is right, or what warranties and indemnities really mean to you? These questions and more will be answered during this presentation by two working, experienced video game lawyers.

For twenty-five years, Dan Lee Rogers has worked with leading video game companies and participated in the development of more than a dozen million unit-selling video games. As an attorney, he has advised and negotiated with interactive game publishers, independent developers, and... Read More →

2:00pm

When it comes to comedy, timing is...everything. So what does that mean for a medium where the element of timing is controlled almost entirely by the audience? Drawing upon lessons learned while designing the narrative and dialogue for the 2017 point-and-click adventure game, “The Low Road”, this talk will focus on the unique challenges that arise from creating a comedy driven video game.We’ll begin by looking at the reasons for the diminished role comedy has had in the gaming industry since the early 2000s, and the obstacles that increased player agency has had on the ability to deliver comedy in gameplay. Next, we’ll examine how the pattern-based systems which are essential to effective gameplay can be anathema to comedy and we’ll discuss ways to create moments of genuine surprise for your player (while avoiding a frustrated rage-quit). Lastly, we’ll discuss the tendency to treat comedy as a liability when dealing with intricate world-building while suggesting approaches in perspective which allow for humor as a device to enrich and ground a world, rather than undermine it.

The lead narrative designer for XGen Studios, Leif Oleson-Cormack is a comedian and playwright based in New York. His play, "Dead Peasants" was the 2012 winner of the Samuel French Canadian Playwrights Award and is currently published by the company. His previously produced work includes... Read More →

2:00pm

This last decade has been an amazing time of growth and change for the Independent Games movement. In this talk Robin will talk about how the practice of artistic, expressive game development emerged, grew into a thriving community - and the opportunities we have looking to the future.

Robin Hunicke is a Game Designer and Co-Founder at Funomena​, working on the VR title Luna, ​the AR title ​WOORLD and ​the PC/Console title ​Wattam. ​She has been designing and making games for over 12 years (Journey, Boom Blox, MySims, The Sims 2). An outspoken advocate... Read More →

3:00pm

The 2008 launch of Xbox Live Indie Games (initially 'Community Games') represented a major step in the democratization of access to the console gaming audience. For the first time, individual creators had a route to getting their homebrew games onto the leading games console. How did this come about and who benefited the most? What were the stand-out games and where did the leading creators move on to? As Microsoft prepares to shut down the platform once and for all, this panel explores the highs and lows of the XBLIG ecosystem from its rocky beginnings through to maturity and conclusion.

Starting in 1998 as designer and programmer on games including Resistance: Fall of Man and POSTAL 2, Nathan Fouts moved to full-time indie in 2007 founding Mommy’s Best Games. His games Shoot 1UP, Serious Sam DD XLL, and more have gibbed the hearts of fans and critics with their... Read More →

As President and Co-Founder of thatgamecompany from 2006-2012, Kellee Santiago developed one of the most prominent brands in independent and innovative game development, pushing the communicative possibilities of video games as a medium. She later took a position as Head of Developer... Read More →

Ian has been working in the video games industry since 2002, starting out as a contract musician and sound designer specializing in handheld Nintendo platforms. He has worked on audio for over 40 GBA and DS titles, including The Sims, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Spore. In... Read More →

I started DigitalDNA Games in 2009 after 15 years in the AAA games industry. I became aware of Xbox Live Indie Games when I was frustrated with my then current job, and I thought it would be a fun and creative distraction. My very first submission, an interactive screen saver named... Read More →

Sharang is a writer, artist and game designer with a particular interest in roleplaying games and interactive performance. He has created and shown such work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Denny Gallery in Manhattan, and Pioneer Works and the... Read More →

Scientist, educator, gamer, and game designer. Tim has degrees in both physics and ecology. He has worked as a member of technical staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and as an ecologist at the National Park Service. As founder and chief everything officer at Mindful Mammoth... Read More →

Kathryn Hymes is 50% of the indie studio Thorny Games, where she makes games about language and cryptography. In her designs, Kathryn wants to tell stories in unorthodox, original settings from voices that may have otherwise been unheard. Full of math and computational linguistics... Read More →

Hakan Seyalioglu is the other 50% of Thorny Games, an independent design studio of larps and RPGs that tells new and unconventional stories. In his design, he’s deeply explored what language means for us culturally and emotionally, and how it can be an engaging mechanic for play... Read More →

Boris Willis is the founder of Black Russian Games, Chief Artistic Officer of Boris Willis Moves and an Associate Professor of Experimental Game Design at George Maso University. He has performed with Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange, Jacob’s Pillow’s Men Dancers and Streb. He has created... Read More →

3:00pm

This talk will discuss representations of mental illness in videogames and the rhetoric used in the media to describe the relationship between mental illness and videogames, and then detail the way in which designers can tactfully and affectively use games to explore personal experiences, emotions, and politics of debility.

Kara Stone is an artist and scholar interested in the affective and gendered experiences of mental illness, wellness, and healing as it relates to art production, videogames, and traditional crafting. Her artwork has been featured in The Atlantic, Wired, and Vice. She is a member... Read More →

4:00pm

What can we learn from long-term rapid game development? Say, making 100 games in 5 years? This talk highlights 10 lessons (and a few tricks) gained from exactly that. With some deep-rooted adages that persisted, some that evolved throughout the challenge, and a few fresh ones gleaned at the end, this 100 game tapestry holds plenty of game-making material to draw from.

Over the past 5 years, James Earl Cox III worked towards a goal: make 100 games. As of June 2017, the challenge was complete; a half-decade journey that led around the world, landed him in Forbes 30 Under 30, produced award-winning games, and caused and remedied burnout. All the positive and negative aspects of this experience offer a lot to sort through. Here, we’ll condense 5 years of game-making effort into 10 compact lessons.

Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2017, James Earl Cox III completed a self-set challenge of making 100 games in 5 years. Co-founder of Seemingly Pointless, he holds a masters degree from the University of Southern California in Interactive Media and Game Design and is a Miami University... Read More →

4:00pm

You’ve successfully launched your game. You got great sales numbers on Steam (hopefully). A few months pass, and your game goes on sale, so you get a boost of revenue. You decide to include your game in a bundle. Great, a quick infusion of cash there! But what’s next? You want to work on your new game and you’re shopping it around, but you’ve still got an amazing game on your hands and you’ve exhausted most of the typical revenue options for it. And, in the meantime you need to keep the internet on at your studio. What now?

Enter Jump.

Jump’s on-demand subscription service brings a new revenue avenue for your games that did not exist before. Jump helps to maximize the total revenue for the lifecycle of your game. How does that happen?

Please join Anthony Palma, CEO of Jump, and Cade Peterson, VP of Content and Community, for this session where the two will explain how the subscription model works and how every type of game has a home on Jump.

Anthony Palma is the founder and CEO of Jump. Before Jump was a game subscription service, the company was actually founded by Anthony in 2012 as Kermdinger Studios, an indie game development studio that worked on a game called Stunt Runner, which now (finally) lives on Jump. Anthony... Read More →

Cade Peterson is gaming industry veteran, having established Moderation Services for PlayStation (North America) before moving into Community Management and having established the best practices there for Sony. Prior to that, he helped improve all aspects of the iTunes Store customer... Read More →

4:00pm

People of different races and cultures share their thoughts on why having different upbringings and world outlooks can have great impact on games and art. Moreover, what steps need to be taken in the games industry to not only be more inclusive of these diverse views but embrace them? What concrete advantages can be gain by actively seeking diverse team members?

Micah has over 15 years experience working in the games industry. His career began at Atari/Infogrames and from there he worked at AOL, Yahoo and Disney Interactive. He started his own indie studio in 2012 and is working on a PC title. | | Full bio available on the Official Indi... Read More →

Kwaku Wynn is a Digital Media Artist/Designer and Mobile App Developer who designs, develops and creates various products such as Music, Games, Apps, etc.
With his company, PIOSystems (currently in ‘Start-Up’ phase), Kwaku is combining his knowledge and expertise from various... Read More →

4:00pm

4:00pm

Inclusivity and diversity create an explosion of creativity and content. Unexpected, stunning, mesmerizing works of imagery can be found in this year's Gaming for Everyone Exhibit. The power of the image to communicate and entrance has long been at the center of human expression, and the power of feedback and procedural response enable games to harness that power in new and stunning ways. Presented by Intel, come experience an exhibit of games that surprise with their look, that use image to reach us in new and unusual ways, and that reinforce how crucial diversity is to art.

4:00pm

Games have a great power to represent and utilize older forms and media, finding new richness and undiscovered stories in old representations and well worn activities. An exhibit of games about and utilizing text - stories delivered through text, mysteries hidden in text, and narratives reimagined as interactive experience. Includes visual novels, interactive narratives, document exploration mysteries, and more.

4:00pm

Exploration and embodiement. Games have a unique ability to provide explorable space and a growing practice of embedding narrative and expression in a world ready for the player to find it. An exhibit of searching and discovering, or revealing stories and ideas in spaces - physical spaces, emotional spaces, imaginary spaces, and others

5:00pm

After a game’s launch, customer support is often viewed by developers as an annoying source of frustration that just grows worse with a game’s popularity. In this session, attendees will learn how to flip this idea on its head -- exploring how practicing honest, empathetic customer support turns support requests into valuable moments of community growth.

Attendees will:

- Closely examine how the language and tone used in response to requests can cause or resolve misunderstandings and frustration, and learn how to avoid making these mistakes.- Hear real support war stories from the Steam early access launch of Clone Drone in the Danger Zone, including a peek inside our “trophy room” of the most heartwarming notes from now-happy customers.- Learn how to coordinate support responses on teams of any size, without eating up your limited time and attention.- Discover what self-serve support options and documentation to offer your players, so the overall volume of support requests decreases without sacrificing the quality of player experience.- Consider how release planning and communication can help ameliorate player concerns.- Review available technical solutions to common problems plaguing games with a high volume of support requests -- how to figure out exactly how common a given crash is, and how to diagnose issues you can’t reproduce yet.- Finally answer the question, “how should we respond to negative reviews, if at all?”

Brian Jordan is an indie game developer currently working on Clone Drone in the Danger Zone. Previously at Code.org, Brian lead development of the Minecraft Hour of Code, which has since reached over 30 million students worldwide. At PopCap Games, Brian developed games and prototypes... Read More →

5:00pm

Over 60 indie developers competed in an intense 48 hour competition to create a complete game from scratch. The film follows their progress from the concept stage to completion and joins the winners in their prize trip toIndieCade where they pitched their final product. This new and independent documentary is a must see film for anyone interested in games and game development.

Game Jam The Movie is a compelling behind the scenes look at the world of independent gaming developers. Join us as we follow the lightning-fast video game development process over the course of a 2 day long "game jam" sponsored by tech moguls. The time crunch and challenges these aspiring game developers face while attempting to build a playable game under the wire, is motivated by their hope to win the grand prize...a VIP all expenses paid trip to the IndieCade International Festival of Independent Games, where they may have the opportunity to showcase their games and meet industry titans...

Susan Gold (@goldfile) is the creator of the much loved Global Game Jam, the annual event that brings together game developers from around the world. Susan is working on launching GGJ NEXT, a game jam and curriculum for young creators. Susan's work fosters creativity, nurtures growth... Read More →

Game Jam: The Movie Co-Director Scott Conditt enjoys combining his favorite mediums, film and gaming, through his creative partnership in CineForge Media. He enjoys structuring story, being a hands-on writer/producer and collaborative director, as well as adding polish to projects... Read More →

Andy Powers is a coach, coder, business builder, andentrepreneurial philanthropist. Inspired by the presence of bigproblems and inevitability of simple solutions, he has spent hiscareer designing the future. Hes an avid basketball fan and at anearly age played at a very high level... Read More →

Game Jam: The Movie Producer Ben Reichert started off in the international public policy world and transitioned into the video game industry six years ago. Since then he's assisted with the launch of 14 video games, launched an incubator program through it company, Game CoLab, that... Read More →

Game Jam: The Movie Cast member: John Wisniewski, Terrasect Team, Game Loot-N-Scoot | After his military career, John decided to go for the dream of making video games. He met the Terrasect team while attending university. Together the team has been apart of several game jams and... Read More →

7:00pm

There can be only one! An exhibit of amazing competitive and head to head games from independent developers across the world. Explore competition in local multiplayer, alt control, and non digital formats.

7:00pm

The wurm has returned and it must feed! Shed your garments and paint the walls with the flesh of your enemies, for only one can be worthy of sacrifice.The rules are simple. Reach the other side and kill anyone that stands in your way. Deftly parry and rend their throats, riddle their bowels with arrows, or squish their brains between your toes. The wurm cares not for chivalry.Sequel to the indie hit of 2014, Nidhogg 2 builds upon the award-winning gameplay of its predecessor with new weapons to wield and levels to master, head-to-toe character customization, and the captivatingly grotesque art of Toby Dixon.And, with music from artists including Mux Mool, Geotic, Doseone, Osborne, and Daedelus, Nidhogg 2 has a soundtrack so good that even the menu screens are awesome.

Messhof is a video game development studio founded in 2013 by Mark Essen and Kristy Norindr and located in Santa Monica, California. At the forefront of independent game development, and recipients of multiple game design and development awards internationally, Messhof primarily... Read More →

10:00am

What makes a good puzzle game, and why? How do I make one and make it GOOD? Let's approach the art and science of puzzle game design through the unstoppably cool lens of human cognition. By framing the ways our brains solve problems, we’ll get a clear look into the fundamental components and strategies for designing unique, flow-inducing puzzles.

A good puzzle game allows us to ride a wave of challenge and success to a cathartic feeling of achievement. Some of the most beloved games of all time, from Braid to Portal utilise puzzles to entertain players.

This panel will take you under the hood of great puzzle games to show you how from puzzle-to-puzzle and level-to-level, these games keep you interested, while avoiding frustration.

Attendees will leave with a high-level understanding of how our brains handle puzzles and a clear language of the range of properties of puzzle games.

Ben Myres is a South African game designer, curator, and digital artist. He is the co-founder of South African game development studio, Nyamakop; programme manager of A MAZE. / Johannesburg; and co-organiser of [Resting] Glitch Face, a Johannesburg experimental games party. One day... Read More →

Brett Taylor is the founder and solo dev of My Dog Zorro. Brett and Zorro most recently released Linelight (linelightgame.com) and are finishing up its port to iOS and Android (as of July 2017)! Brett’s been designing and programming games since 2007; he previously worked as a rapid... Read More →

10:00am

Surviving in mobile (iOS/Android) as an indie is extremely hard. Crowded app store, huge players, expensive user acquisition costs are all challenges we need to overcome. In this session, we share many of the guerrilla survival tactics we use at Kooapps that has helped us grow Pictoword from zero to a top 30 mobile game.

CK Wang is co-founder and CEO of Kooapps LLC where he grew Pictoword from zero to a top 30 iOS and Android mobile game. He also built Kooapps from ground up to a staff of 50 today. Prior to Kooapps, CK worked at Microsoft Games Studio and Microsoft Research. CK has a B.S. in Electrical... Read More →

10:00am

No art form is more closely linked with technology than computer games. Yet the nature of the art form is not defined by that technology - game makers take computing technologies designed for purpose, and twist them into playful entertainment and art. In 2017 we have several new technologies upon us, ranging from complex and expensive VR and AR, to cheap microcontrollers and maker technologies, as well as great leaps forward in software, particularly AI. We’ll discuss how these new and upcoming technologies might find their way into the Indiecades of the future.

| Tender Claws is a studio working at the intersection of art, technology and storytelling. Over a decade Tender Claws (founded by Danny Cannizzaro and Samantha Gorman) has released projects across a variety of media including: video, live performance, interactive installation, games... Read More →

Mitu Khandaker is a game designer and programmer, as well as a co-founder of Spirit AI, making tools to help developers use tech to make games more accessible and intriguing in various ways: from rich autonomous characters to procedural narratives to even mitigating online harassment. She... Read More →

Michael John (MJ) teaches game design and development at UC Santa Cruz. Prior to UCSC, he worked in the commercial industry for 20+ years, and also co-founded GlassLab, an educational games consortium, along the way. He spends his time amusing students with stories of the games of... Read More →

10:00am

Facilitated by Sean Bouchard of USC, this outdoor gameplay will feature the work of Bernie DeKoven. Bernie DeKoven is considered by many to be the godfather of the Big Games movement, which has spread physical play all over the world. 2017 marks the initiation of the annual Big Fun award in honor of Bernie DeKoven.

10:00am

Explore the innovation and artistry of creators across the globe in the Nominee Exhibit. Selected by the jury committee as the most innovative and exciting work from this year's submissions, all are eligible for the IndieCade Awards. A diverse selection of games and playable experiences from across mediums, cultures, and concepts. This exhibit includes immersive, virtual reality, table games, roleplaying, visual novels, adventure games, puzzle games, audio games, installations and more.

Games Included:_transferA Normal Lost PhoneAtchafalaya ArcadeBIT RATBleep SpaceBury me, my LoveBusy WorkCat Sorter VRCosmic Top Secret Cribbage with GrandpasDetentionEmotional Fugitive DetectorEverything is Going to Be OKFear SphereFeastFour HorsemenFrog Fractions 2GNOGHackers of ResistanceIshmael Keyboard SportsKimLadykiller in a BindObjectifObligeOikospiel Book IOneShotRhythm DoctorSantiagoSign: A Game about being UnderstoodThe Norwood SuiteTracking IdaUn-DestinedVignettes Virtual Virtual Reality Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

10:00am

10:00am

Inclusivity and diversity create an explosion of creativity and content. Unexpected, stunning, mesmerizing works of imagery can be found in this year's Gaming for Everyone Exhibit. The power of the image to communicate and entrance has long been at the center of human expression, and the power of feedback and procedural response enable games to harness that power in new and stunning ways. Presented by Intel, come experience an exhibit of games that surprise with their look, that use image to reach us in new and unusual ways, and that reinforce how crucial diversity is to art.

10:00am

Games have a great power to represent and utilize older forms and media, finding new richness and undiscovered stories in old representations and well worn activities. An exhibit of games about and utilizing text - stories delivered through text, mysteries hidden in text, and narratives reimagined as interactive experience. Includes visual novels, interactive narratives, document exploration mysteries, and more.

10:00am

Exploration and embodiement. Games have a unique ability to provide explorable space and a growing practice of embedding narrative and expression in a world ready for the player to find it. An exhibit of searching and discovering, or revealing stories and ideas in spaces - physical spaces, emotional spaces, imaginary spaces, and others

11:00am

Danny Baranowsky is a composer, musician and larger-than-life personality living in Seattle, Washington by way of Mesa, Arizona. Over the past decade, Danny has risen to the top of his field, composing the music for best-selling games Canabalt, Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac... Read More →

11:00am

Tabby Rose is a game designer, illustrator and writer based in Toronto, Canada. Graduating with a Masters of Science in Biomedical Communications from the University of Toronto, Tabby started her career creating educational applications for medical students and clinicians. In 2014... Read More →

Jeremy Gibson Bond is a Professor of Practice teaching game design and development at Michigan State University. Since 2013, he has served the IndieCade independent game festival and conference as the Chair of Education and Advancement, where he co-chairs the IndieXchange summit each... Read More →

Constance Steinkuehler is a Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine where she investigates cognition and learning in multiplayer videogames in domains including literacy, scientific reasoning, mathematical reasoning, computational literacy, collective problem... Read More →

12:00pm

Akeytsu's long-awaited 1.0 release benefits from a twelve beta version history extensively tested by animators, for animators. Its brand new approach to skinning, rigging and 3D animation has resulted in gains in productivity within a variety of game workflows. In this session, Gabriela Montes, animator of the popular Epic Tavern and an early adopter of Akeytsu, will demonstrate how the software disrupts the status-quo with its simplicity, velocity and ergonomics.

After graduating with a diploma in Communications/Media productions from University of Quebec in Montreal, Julie started her career in film distribution and moved in film production. Passionate for VFX and 3D animation, Julie joined Kaydara, a startup company, where she was responsible... Read More →

Gabriela Montes is a 3D Artist and Animator that has been working as part of the Hyperkinetic Studios team since its beginning. Their first internal project, Epic Tavern, was released to Steam Early Access this year and is currently gaining momentum in number of players worldwide... Read More →

A former journalist, Florent runs The Pixel Hunt, a gamedev studio specialized in reality-inspired games. Florent is currently finishing Bury me, my Love (http://burymemylove.com) with writer, game designer and curator Pierre Corbinais. Bury me, my Love is a game for mobile phones... Read More →

For Ben, game developer-artist, 3D artist-animator, illustrator, and professor, the mission is no longer escapism but excavation. He has always been at odds whether to hide behind a silk, digital screen (virtual worlds) or become a vocal presence for a more social cause (sociopolitical... Read More →

12:00pm

As the Program Coordinator for the SCA’s Interactive Media and Games Division, Kelly delights in helping students navigate the waters of their future in interaction design. A graduate of SCA’s Writing Division, he specializes in transmedia storytelling, producing work for tv... Read More →

1:00pm

Anya Combs, games outreach lead at Kickstarter, talks with three creators of Kickstarter-funded games about how they got through the most challenging parts of development and conquered self-doubt and burnout.

A 17-year veteran of the gaming industry, Rich is the President & CTO of Hyperkinetic Studios and Game Director of their first original IP project, Epic Tavern. From the acclaimed, best-selling AAA titles like Spider-Man 2: The Game, to small-team indie projects, Rich has played... Read More →

Anya Combs is the Games Outreach Lead at Kickstarter, where she focuses on working with game creators. She has been active in the digital games space for nearly a decade, overseeing multiple mobile and online titles launched for Nickelodeon & AddictingGames. She is excited to continue... Read More →

During his final year in the Film & Television Production MFA program at the USC, Bryce Kho decided to take the Introductory Course to game development and immediately fell in love with the medium. The following semester, he took another course with Richard Lemarchand, Former Game... Read More →

Tabby Rose is a game designer, illustrator and writer based in Toronto, Canada. Graduating with a Masters of Science in Biomedical Communications from the University of Toronto, Tabby started her career creating educational applications for medical students and clinicians. In 2014... Read More →

2:00pm

Some will be funny lessons, absurd, and stupid (Like how to instantly induce motion sickness through animation curve ease types). A lot will be best practices, design tricks (How to compose scenes to maximize 3d depth perception), and even mobile VR GPU alpha fill rate optimizations.

It's all knowledge I had to fight, flail, and fail to gain.

This will be a snappy, lighthearted, image-heavy (and animated GIF) presentation of the challenges in the VR design space.

The talk is for Makers of all skill levels: we'll stay fairly high-level with most of the topics and many of the game engine specific concepts are useful in non-VR games. People with animation, design, art, business development, audio, and engineering background . . . anyone who is curious about VR is very welcome!

"Mike Murdock is a VR Designer and Creative Director at TriHelix ///. His Virtual Reality experiences have been shown worldwide including Sundance New Frontiers, The World Economic Forum, Tribeca, and South by South West. | He's worked on platforms ranging from $10 Cardboard phone... Read More →

2:00pm

More than a decade ago, game designer Tracy Fullerton started working on what has been called “the world’s most improbable video game.” Starting with a tiny team and no funding, Fullerton began creating “Walden, a game” with only the inkling of an idea: that Henry David Thoreau’s famous experiment in living simply in nature felt like a game, albeit an unusual one. Through the excitement of early design and the difficult discipline of carving time out of busy schedules to continue working without real resources; through critical illness, death, depression, marriages, births, economic ups and downs, and serendipitous meetings, Fullerton talks about the true toll that following your dream of making different games can take, and why, in the end, it may all be worth it.

Tracy Fullerton, M.F.A., is an experimental game designer, professor and director of the USC Game Innovation Lab, a research center that has produced several influential independent games, including Cloud, flOw, Darfur is Dying, and The Night Journey, with artist Bill Viola. She is... Read More →

2:00pm

Playing together is one of the primal, original experiences of humans - collective imagination, competitive play, and co-operative puzzle solving all alight ancient centers of our brains and bodies. As games move through and past the screen, collective play becomes a powerful tool for creating discussion and pleasure. An exhibit of games meant to be played with/against/by a group of friends.

2:00pm

Playing together is one of the primal, original experiences of humans - collective imagination, competitive play, and co-operative puzzle solving all alight ancient centers of our brains and bodies. As games move through and past the screen, collective play becomes a powerful tool for creating discussion and pleasure. An exhibit of games meant to be played with/against/by a group of friends.

3:00pm

Nonny de la Pena draws from the Asian Art Archive collection to create a new iteration of “Safely Maneuvering Across Lin He Road” (1995) by Beijing artist Lin Yilin.

In the initial performance, Lin built a wall of bricks in the middle of a busy roadway in Guangzhou. As the artist moved across, he gradually brought the wall along, forcing cars to detour around him. For “Passage”, de la Pena does not simply re-enact Lin’s performance but creates an experiential encounter that pushes boundaries: between artist as maker, audience as receiver, and art as conceptual or visceral. In Passage: life of wall, visitors spend around 10 minutes having a go at building a slow moving wall across a busy road in China as buses, trucks, cars and motorbikes swerve around them.

As the user gives life to a wall in the middle of a busy street in China, an experiential encounter blossoms between artist, audience, and art.

Nonny de la Peña is the founder and CEO of Emblematic Group, a leader in creating immersive virtual, mixed and augmented reality.
One of the most influential pioneers in VR, Nonny created walk around virtual reality with the first-ever VR documentary Hunger in Los Angeles at... Read More →

3:00pm

The invention of the lightbulb didn’t come from the continuous improvement of candles.

From a technology perspective, audio is standing at the precipice of a huge change. Dozens of companies are pushing at this edge from both a content and tools perspective and have huge visions for how audio will change in the future. These ripples will impact all applications of audio - from games, to Virtual and Augmented Realities. Woah woah woah when did just normal sound waves get so complex? Video games have been a huge proponent of development in audio technologies, giving sound a way to become interactive. With VR and AR touching down on the figurative landing strip of technology, we will explore how sound is both different and the same in these new paradigms. Sound enthusiasts, composers, sound designers and even regular game developers and gamers will learn about games in interactive and immersive environments, including the technologies and creative approaches that make it work.

Kedar Shashidhar is the Associate Creative Director at OSSIC and has been obsessed with spatial audio in VR, games, and music since before it was cool. Working in all facets of production, Kedar has been recording musicians spatially in the studio while developing spatial audio toolsets... Read More →

Jordan Magnuson is a game developer and interactive media artist currently based in Santa Cruz. He is particularly interested in how the most basic elements of interaction and representation can be used to craft meaning and impact in games. Some of his better-known creations include ​​Loneliness, ​​Freedom... Read More →

4:00pm

Richard Lemarchand is a game designer, an educator, a writer, a public speaker and a consultant. He is an Associate Professor in the USC Games program, and is the Associate Chair of the Interactive Media & Games Division of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic... Read More →

4:00pm

What are you waiting for?How to create a game as a one person dev team.

You have an idea for a video game. It's a really good idea. A really, REALLY good idea. However, you have a few problems: You don't have an artist, you don't have a programmer, you don't have a writer, you don't have manager, you don't have office space, you don't have time, you don't have ....wait a minute. What do you have? A boundless imagination that created that wonderful idea of yours! Now apply that imagination to the development process!

With some simplification, open source programs, creative commons materials and a lot of “MacGyver-ing”, this session will show you how to make a version of your project at a very low budget by yourself (or with a hand or two from others need be). Will it 100% mirror the vision in your head? No, because your mind is perfect. You can ride space tofu dragons that spit jelly beans. Will this be a project that many others and yourself will be proud of? Certainly!

Attendees will leave this session previously thinking “Can I actually make this game idea I've thought about for years?” to “Of course I can, I'm going to get started right now!”.

“C” is a digital media creator, writing piles of game documents and short stories since forever. He recently created “Somewhere in the South”, a survival horror experience that takes place on the Underground Railroad. He strides for others to stop waiting for tomorrow and... Read More →

5:00pm

Have you ever struggled through a project with a sour team dynamic? Or have you ever delighted in teamwork with a group of people that strive for excellent team culture? We want to hear your experiences - the good, the bad, and the ugly - as we discuss the importance of modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart.

Hear three recent graduates of USC’s Game Program discuss our adventures in leadership over the course of a 16-month capstone project and how we applied lessons from Exemplary Leadership (Kouzes and Posner) to game development. We highlight specific applications of each of the 5 principles and how they foster healthy, productive team cultures, all the while relating our experiences as team leaders of art, design, and engineering disciplines.

Come participate in this lecture/discussion to learn practical ways to improve your current and future game projects!

Will Anderson is the Lead designer on Second Nature and has been working on that game for the last year and a half alongside Zoe, Aaron and the rest of the team. He is a recent graduate from USC, majoring in Interactive Media and Game Design and currently works as a technical designer... Read More →

Aaron Cheney served as the Game Director and Lead Engineer for Second Nature, a cooperative platformer, alongside Will, Zoe, and many other talented student developers at USC. He is a recent graduate with degrees in computer science and mathematics, and now makes games at Night School... Read More →

Zoe Serbin is a recent graduate from USC's Cinematic Arts program with a degree in Interactive Media and Game Design and a minor in animation. She has worked closely with Aaron and Will for two years, directing the artistic style of Second Nature, creating a lot of the in-game assets... Read More →

5:00pm

What makes a game good? or bad? or better? or indie? IndieCade has hosted Well Played sessions across the years to explore these questions through in-depth close readings of video games that unpack the various meanings to be found in the playing of a game. The goal is to help develop and define a literacy of games as well as a sense of the value and diversity of independent games. Games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. This is one of IndieCade’s highlight 10th anniversary moment, celebrating the tradition of hosting a well played and featuring Tacoma, the just released a game by the Fullbright company, who took part in a IndieCade well played with their award winning selection, Gone Home - exactly five years ago to the day.

Tacoma is a sci-fi narrative adventure set aboard a high-tech space station in the year 2088, explore every detail of how the station’s crew lived and worked, finding the clues that add up to a gripping story of trust, fear, and resolve in the face of disaster.

Naomi Clark is an independent game designer based in New York City and an Assistant Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center. For more than two decades she's designed, produced, and written for a wide variety of games including early text-based virtual worlds, downloadable and mobile... Read More →

Drew Davidson is a professor, producer and player of interactive media. His background spans academic, industry and professional worlds and he is interested in stories across texts, comics, games and other media. He is the Director of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie... Read More →

7:00pm

Play in the dark. Be compelled by the lights, the mystery, and the beauty. Experience interactive film, role-play with friends, and explore the games of IndieCade through the power and majesty of darkness.

9:00am

Join Christy Durham and AJ Webster to learn how playing board games as a family can help nurture STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) thinking. After a brief introduction, we will play board games and debrief on the experience to highlight the critical thinking and problem solving that is inherent in game play. Open to All!

Christy Durham is an educator with nearly 20 years of elementary and middle school teaching experience at a number of prestigious Los Angeles private schools. She holds a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, as well as a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential.Christy... Read More →

Innovator and educator AJ Webster has more than a decade and a half of classroom experience teaching science, Latin, language arts, math, and social science. AJ has his MA in educational leadership and policy studies. He specializes in game-based learning and embraces the Maker... Read More →

9:00am

10:00am

Playing together is one of the primal, original experiences of humans - collective imagination, competitive play, and co-operative puzzle solving all alight ancient centers of our brains and bodies. As games move through and past the screen, collective play becomes a powerful tool for creating discussion and pleasure. An exhibit of games meant to be played with/against/by a group of friends.

10:00am

Playing together is one of the primal, original experiences of humans - collective imagination, competitive play, and co-operative puzzle solving all alight ancient centers of our brains and bodies. As games move through and past the screen, collective play becomes a powerful tool for creating discussion and pleasure. An exhibit of games meant to be played with/against/by a group of friends.

11:00am

Rami Ismail is the Business & Development Guy at Vlambeer, a Dutch independent game studio known best for Nuclear Throne, Ridiculous Fishing, LUFTRAUSERS, Super Crate Box, GUN GODZ and Serious Sam: The Random Encounter. | | Rami travels around the world trying to find game development... Read More →

Justin Reynard is the owner of Secret Cow Level, a Los Angeles based game development studio specializing in Javascript. He worked on the Emmy winning Rides.TV interactive video platform as well as games such as Fallout: New Vegas, Dungeon Siege III and South Park: The Stick of Truth... Read More →

11:00am

11:00am

Inclusivity and diversity create an explosion of creativity and content. Unexpected, stunning, mesmerizing works of imagery can be found in this year's Gaming for Everyone Exhibit. The power of the image to communicate and entrance has long been at the center of human expression, and the power of feedback and procedural response enable games to harness that power in new and stunning ways. Presented by Intel, come experience an exhibit of games that surprise with their look, that use image to reach us in new and unusual ways, and that reinforce how crucial diversity is to art.

11:00am

Games have a great power to represent and utilize older forms and media, finding new richness and undiscovered stories in old representations and well worn activities. An exhibit of games about and utilizing text - stories delivered through text, mysteries hidden in text, and narratives reimagined as interactive experience. Includes visual novels, interactive narratives, document exploration mysteries, and more.

11:00am

Exploration and embodiement. Games have a unique ability to provide explorable space and a growing practice of embedding narrative and expression in a world ready for the player to find it. An exhibit of searching and discovering, or revealing stories and ideas in spaces - physical spaces, emotional spaces, imaginary spaces, and others

12:00pm

Aimed at intermediate narrative developers, I'll briefly talk about several methods for crafting narratives that respond to player choice: branch-and-bottleneck, quality-based narrative, waypoint narrative, and salience-based narrative (the latter two being terms Emily Short has coined to describe two very useful types of systems). The talk will lay out the benefits of each type, how to implement a basic quality-based narrative, and how to fit a narrative system to a particular type of story you're trying to tell. I'll show examples from my own work of each kind, and answer questions from audience members about how they can build their own in systems like Twine, Choicescript, and Ink.

Cat is a freelance narrative designer, currently working with Choice of Games. She's passionate about building interactive narrative systems and the interplay between story and mechanics. | | Full bio available on the Official IndieCade Wiki... Read More →

Alistair Aitcheson is a game developer who specialises in playful installations, custom-made game hardware, and interactive performances. Rather than seeing video games as an end in themselves, he sees his games as a springboard for human interaction, encouraging players to bend rules... Read More →

Jessica Hammer has lectured and presented extensively on topics related to games. Her 2013 Games for Change talk is viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fWeNLbFk9E. A full listing of her talks is available on her CV: http://bit.ly/2n6YkJ4. | | Full bio available on the... Read More →

Moyra Turkington is the founder of the indie studio Unruly Designs and the creator of War Birds - a series of chamber games about women fighting on the front lines of history. She is interested in personal, political, transformative games that challenge how we understand the world... Read More →

1:00pm

When the first Global Game Jam was held in 2009, we thought it was a magnificent achievement; 23 countries making games at the same time! Surely, we thought, this is as global as it gets for indie game development. Now ten years later, GGJ has been instrumental in changing game democratization and helping establish the indie game movement around the world. The event has changed lives, launched careers and is held in a whopping 100 countries and growing. At our upcoming 10 Year Anniversary in 2018 we expect to have 40,000 jammers and 8000 NEW games made in one weekend. Join founders Susan Gold and Foaad Khosmood in a session about the GGJ's upcoming 10 year anniversary. Learn the origin story of the world's largest game creation event and see some of the most awesome games that started out as GGJ prototypes, including many IndieCade submissions!

Susan Gold (@goldfile) is the creator of the much loved Global Game Jam, the annual event that brings together game developers from around the world. Susan is working on launching GGJ NEXT, a game jam and curriculum for young creators. Susan's work fosters creativity, nurtures growth... Read More →

Foaad Khosmood (@foaadk) is an Associate Professor of Computer Science, and the Forbes Endowed Professor of Computer Engineering at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). His research interests include Natural Language Processing (NLP), Game AI and Game Education. He... Read More →

2:00pm

Making a game with high production values can be difficult on a tight budget. In this lecture, we want to provide an example of our approach to getting better quality content on the cheap, from tools, to animation, to lighting and effects. This talk is a combination of practical ideas and inspirational content, as we hope to be able to discuss some of our challenges and hardships in a way that encourages developers to keep going in spite of difficult challenges.

Born and raised in the UK, Aby is accomplished artist with a prior history working on at Sony and a number of independent art contracts. | | Full bio available on the Official IndieCade Wiki... Read More →

Tristan Parrish Moore is the co-founder of Broken Window Studios, along with his wife, Aby. He has been working in film, games, and simulations since 2010. He has done work with THQ, Redacted Studios, Lion's Gate, Warner Brothers and more. He most recently worked as the Creative Director... Read More →

2:00pm

I'm a strategy game designer, and I think there's a lot that needs to be explored about single-player competitive strategy games. I think what's great about strategy games in general is that they become a part of your life - "I am a League of Legends player" or "I am a Chess player". They're a part of your identity, that you try to get better at over the course of years, like playing a musical instrument or learning a language.

One downside of strategy games is that they also create a lot of competition anxiety in people. It's scary to play against other players who might be (or even just seem) a lot better than you.

But this downside is made much worse by the fact that multiplayer competitive games tend to often bring out the worst in people, especially online. The inherent "I win, you lose" aspect of competitive strategy games seems to bring out a lot of toxicity and bad feelings in almost every case.

I think single-player strategy games are a space almost totally unexplored. There are a few examples, like Rogue-likes, Civ-likes, and some designer board games that I'd like to talk about. My own game, Auro: A Monster-Bumping Adventure, innovated a "single player Elo" system wherein every time you win, you go up in rank (and losing brings you down in rank, just like an online matchmaking system). This way, you always have a balanced difficulty which forces the player to explore that edge of what they do and do not understand about the system.

Overall, I think that single player strategy games are under-explored, and many games that do explore it do not learn from the lessons of multiplayer strategy games.

I am a game designer and the author of "Clockwork Game Design". I'm the co-founder of Dinofarm Games, the creators of 100 Rogues and Auro: A Monster-Bumping Adventure. I gave a talk at NYU Practice 2013 and have spoken at several other schools, such as the NYFA and Franklin & Marshall... Read More →

2:00pm

Playing together is one of the primal, original experiences of humans - collective imagination, competitive play, and co-operative puzzle solving all alight ancient centers of our brains and bodies. As games move through and past the screen, collective play becomes a powerful tool for creating discussion and pleasure. An exhibit of games meant to be played with/against/by a group of friends.

2:00pm

Playing together is one of the primal, original experiences of humans - collective imagination, competitive play, and co-operative puzzle solving all alight ancient centers of our brains and bodies. As games move through and past the screen, collective play becomes a powerful tool for creating discussion and pleasure. An exhibit of games meant to be played with/against/by a group of friends.

3:00pm

Grendel Games has developed commercial serious games, video games that have societal impact, on an international scale. Our games manage to inspire and intrinsically motivate players to learn and practice.

Among the results are for instance the video game ‘Underground’, a video game on the Nintendo Wii U that trains anyone anywhere in the basic skills for laparoscopy. Or ’Gryphon Rider’, a rehabilitation game for children with acquired brain damage that allows patients to do rehabilitation in a fun and entertaining manner. All of these projects are the perfect marriage between academic insights and commercial application. Capturing movement are at their hearts, whether it be the movement of a surgeon’s arms during surgery or the patients physique during rehabilitation.

Tim Laning is Commercial and Creative Director Grendel Games. He holds a Bachelor degree in communication. He has been on the forefront of innovation and cross-sectoral development through the renowned and lauded company Grendel Games since 2003. At Grendel Games, Tim is responsible... Read More →

3:00pm

I've been making games for 20 years. Going from AAA development to indie development helped me grow and mature my skills in making games. This presentation will discuss how transitioning from a specialist to a generalist attitude was a valuable sequence of events leading to a broader understanding of what we do to make games for our audiences.

Tomo began his career in game design in 1998. Since then he’s worked on everything design related from the small details to the overall strategy across many genres. Highlights include: Spider-Man 2, Boom Blox, and Medal of Honor (2010). Today he is a co-founder and CCO of Hyperkinetic... Read More →

3:00pm

Everyone agrees that having good tools is crucial for game development. In my talk, I will go even further and show how it can be a powerful way to drive and evolve game design throughout development. I will cover lessons learnt from three very different game projects.The first one being building the level-editing toolset at Starbreeze, used to develop several AAA-titles such as the cinematic FPS games Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004) and The Darkness (2007). Here, we implemented a number of unique integrated systems into our general level-design tool that allowed us to experiment with innovative designed ideas, like pre-recording physics simulations and using dynamic lights in gameplay (something that wasn't very common in 2004).The second example is the game/tool hybrid Colors! 3D (2012) where the line between game and tool is non-existent, and how game design philosophies can, and should, be applied when developing internal tools.Finally, we have our current game Yoku’s Island Express, where we have a novel approach to a huge seamless side-scrolling world using custom live editing tools in combination with external tools like Adobe Photoshop. This all returns back to the initial point: How tools can encourage the team to make better use of existing game-mechanics that might be underused. Championing the idea that the extra effort put into making your tools fun, rather than just useful, leads your team into using them more creatively and ultimately leading to better games.

Jens Andersson is a game designer and programmer working in the games industry. Educated by the underground demo-scene as a member of groups like Yodel and TBL, Jens became one of the founding members of Swedish game developer Starbreeze in 1998. There he held multiple key roles within... Read More →

4:00pm

Want to know what keep your eyes out for? What does the future ofIndieCade and artful play hold? Come listen to a selection ofIndieCade 2017 developers talk about their top secret, super awesome,crazily innovative upcoming projects.

Come and hear Sharang Biswas from Feast, Peter Bruun from Keyboard Sports, A.M. Darke from Objectif and Elizabeth Maler from A Normal Lost Phone talk about their next projects in the works!

Mitu Khandaker is a game designer and programmer, as well as a co-founder of Spirit AI, making tools to help developers use tech to make games more accessible and intriguing in various ways: from rich autonomous characters to procedural narratives to even mitigating online harassment. She... Read More →

Jeremy Gibson Bond is a Professor of Practice teaching game design and development at Michigan State University. Since 2013, he has served the IndieCade independent game festival and conference as the Chair of Education and Advancement, where he co-chairs the IndieXchange summit each... Read More →

Jarryd Huntley, a Lead Coding Bootcamp Instructor at We Can Code IT, plays important roles in Cleveland’s game development scene as both an academic by teaching game development at Lorain County Community College and as an independent game developer, currently working on Art Club... Read More →

An independent game advocate since 2004, Brandon Boyer has worked in the media at outlets including Edge magazine, Gamasutra, and Boing Boing, where he co-founded its iconic blog Offworld. That role led him to a five-year stint as the Chairman of the Independent Games Festival, and... Read More →

Keita Takahashi is a beloved developer from Japan. He created the popular hits "Katamari Damacy", "We love Katamari", "Noby Noby Boy", "Tenya Wanya Teens", and "ALPHABET”. Currently, Takahashi and his team are working on the eagerly awaited "Wattam”.